


Of Sand and Death Stars (and moron friends who fall in love with Princes)

by Iamprongsie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka POV, Ahsoka as Chewie, Anakin as Han, Canonswap au, Cody as Wedge, F/F, Fives as Leia, I'm sorry I know I promised angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mostly Crack, Obi-Wan as Lando (mentioned), Padme as Jyn, Rex as Luke, Shaak Ti as Old Ben, The clone wars characters are in the original trilogy universe, implied established Cody/Rex, it's off-screen don't worry, mild swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 11:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18498454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamprongsie/pseuds/Iamprongsie
Summary: So! Ages and Worldbuilding!Ahsoka is about 35, Anakin is 28, Rex and Fives are 25. The Empire's only been around for about 10-15 years as well, but it's still just as established as it was in ANH.Rex and Fives were adopted by the Organa's when they were about ten, they were force sensitive clone kids that a Jedi managed to rescue. Anakin has a similar backstory to his canon backstory but he didn't get picked up by Jedi. Shmi died when he was about 14, and he bought himself out of slavery soon after but then got in with Proxima on Corellia and then the Imperial Army. He met Ahsoka just like Han met Chewie in Solo as well.Ahsoka was a freedom fighter on Shili, fighting against the droid invasion there. She helped Yoda to escape when Order 66 went off.





	Of Sand and Death Stars (and moron friends who fall in love with Princes)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jen425](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/gifts).



> So! Ages and Worldbuilding!  
> Ahsoka is about 35, Anakin is 28, Rex and Fives are 25. The Empire's only been around for about 10-15 years as well, but it's still just as established as it was in ANH.  
> Rex and Fives were adopted by the Organa's when they were about ten, they were force sensitive clone kids that a Jedi managed to rescue. Anakin has a similar backstory to his canon backstory but he didn't get picked up by Jedi. Shmi died when he was about 14, and he bought himself out of slavery soon after but then got in with Proxima on Corellia and then the Imperial Army. He met Ahsoka just like Han met Chewie in Solo as well.  
> Ahsoka was a freedom fighter on Shili, fighting against the droid invasion there. She helped Yoda to escape when Order 66 went off.

_Forget Tatooine being the kriffing sandy armpit of the Galaxy_ , Ahsoka thinks as she sulks in the midday heat, _it’s the fucking sandy **asshole** of the Galaxy_. It’s hot and gross and there’s sand in her boots and if _she’s_ doing this spectacularly badly, imagine what Anakin must be feeling like. 

The midday suns burn her eyes as the two of them make their way out of their docking bay and into the closest cantina, which is exactly the kind of disreputable place you’d expect to find on Tatooine. It’s smoky and dark, and there’s a really annoying Bith band playing in the corner. 

Anakin sighs deeply and makes his way up to the bar, and Ahsoka follows. Everyone in here looks like they want a fight, especially given the general mood of the place and the number of unconcealed weapons. After a brief altercation with an Aqualish and a man who’s wanted in twelve systems - they back off when Ahsoka bares her fangs and when Anakin goes for his verpine blaster - the two of them go and find a table in the corner. They’re both sulking and moody, given that they’d had to drop that last load of spice when the Imps tried to board their ship. Now they’re in the shit with Jabba, and no one wants that. Ahsoka didn’t even _want_ to work with the slug, but refusing the head sleemo while running jobs in Hutt Space seemed like a bad idea. She’s seen what happens to the people that refuse jobs with the Hutts, and it’s not pretty. In fact, running spice for him is better than being forced into a skimpy bikini and playing nice for the shitheads that wander around the palace. 

Oh would you look at that, she’s finished her first drink. Better go get another one, she’d rather not deal with Anakin’s sulking when she’s completely sober. 

As she’s getting another drink at the bar, there’s a commotion at the door. A tall togruta walks in with two droids and a guy who looks Alderaani. The droids are kicked out, and the other two make their way up to the bar. 

They look like they might bring trouble, so Ahsoka resolves to keep a close guard. She and Anakin can’t afford any more bullshit now, not so soon after the Jabba incident. 

Five minutes and three drinks later, she’s proved right when the kid gets into an argument with the same Aqualish-and-lowlife pair as before and the togruta just grabs a lightsaber and slices his arm off like she hasn’t a care in the world. _Definitely_ trouble. She gives them a few minutes before they start another fight, and orders another drink. 

“Excuse me, ma’am, are you going to Alderaan?” The togruta comes up next to her and Ahsoka manages to get a closer look. She’s tall, taller than Ahsoka, with reddish skin and grey markings. The akul teeth she wears signifies her importance as a hunt mother, one who leads the initiation ceremonies for young togruta girls. She also looks very familiar to Ahsoka, like she’s someone remembered from an old past. The woman seems like she could be a Jedi, or maybe she was in a past life. That would definitely explain the lightsaber. Ahsoka’s only met a couple of Jedi, Master Yoda on Shili right when the Empire took control and a padawan named Qui-Gon on the moon of Trandosha when they were both taken prisoner. They were memorable, even if the rest of the galaxy’s forgotten them. 

“It depends,” Ahsoka shrugs, taking another sip of her drink. “How much you got?”

“Well, we’re two people and two droids, and this is time sensitive. Money’s not really an issue,” the woman replies. “We’d like to get out of here as soon as possible though, and without imperial attention.”

These people must be rebels, it’s the only explanation. There aren’t many free togruta in this part of the galaxy, and she looks too old to be an escapee from Jabba’s palace. Besides, any way to stick it to old Palpy is a good one, especially if she’s also inconveniencing Jabba at the same time. 

“Yeah sure, we can take you! I’ll just need to check with my partner, but come with me.”

Hopefully she won’t regret this. 

***

Anakin is in the exact place she left him in, sitting and sulking in a booth near the back of the cantina. He sits up as they approach though, and tries to look like a respectable lowlife. 

“Is everything alright?” 

Ahsoka opens her mouth to speak, but the elegant togruta speaks over her. “We’d like passage to Alderaan, please.”

Anakin turns to Ahsoka and narrows his eyes slightly. “We doing passenger runs now?”

Ahsoka smirks. “They can pay,” she replies, and steals the rest of his drink. He sighs in her direction but drops it this time. 

“Money’s no issue, but this _is_ rather time sensitive, I’m afraid,” the togruta says. 

“Yeah, we’re in a shitload of trouble and we need to get off-planet _now_ ,” the guy says. His accent’s weird, like a mix of Alderaan and- Concord Dawn, perhaps? That’s odd, he’s dressed in traditional Tatooine clothing. Anyway, what Ahsoka doesn’t know she won’t be able to tell other people, especially under torture, so she lets it go. “You got a fast ship?”

Anakin scoffs. “ _Fast_? The Falcon’ll make point twenty past lightspeed without even breaking a sweat!” He leans towards their guests conspiratorially and smirks. “She made the Kessel run in twelve parsecs, how about that?”

Ahsoka snorts. Anakin gives her a dirty look, and she shrugs at him. It was closer to thirteen, and that was years ago when the ship was brand new. There’s no way the Falcon could make that run in that distance now. The togruta looks unimpressed - given, if she is what Ahsoka thinks she is, then she’s done far more impressive things in her time. The guy looks just as unimpressed. 

“I bet I could fly that thing, easily. I could probably get eleven parsecs as well! It can’t be harder than Beggars Canyon around here-”

Anakin inhales and leans forward, ready to put this kid in his place, but Ahsoka grabs his arm. 

“Are we taking them? They can pay, and we should get off planet soon before Jabba comes looking for us,” she says, letting go of her friend’s arm. 

“Yeah, we’ll take ‘em,” he replies carelessly, sticking his elbows on the table and leaning forward again. “Now, payment. We want twenty five thousand.”

The togruta also leans forward and mirrors Anakin’s position, a smirk on her features. Maybe she likes haggling, although Ahsoka can’t figure out why. The guy just looks on, looking vaguely annoyed at the whole proceedings. 

“Fifteen thousand,” she replies. 

“Twenty two.”

“Fifteen.”

“Twenty one.”

“Fifteen.”

“Twenty.”

Ahsoka buries a groan in her arm. Anakin’s shit at haggling, always has been, always will. He’ll never be at _Obi-Wan’s_ level, let alone the Negotiator’s (the famous Jedi had stopped on Tatooine during the war, he told her) - hang on, is _that_ where she’s seen the woman before? 

“Sixteen.”

Perhaps sensing that the togruta’s willing to give in, Anakin’s eyes light up. 

“Twenty one.”

“Sixteen.”

Ahsoka’s getting impatient now, she wants _off_ of this stupid sandy planet. 

“Nineteen.”

Oh, now things are looking like they’ll close up soon.

“Seventeen.”

There, done, seventeen grand, now can we just go?

Except they can’t, because Anakin is being stubborn. 

“Nineteen.”

Ahsoka’s had enough. “How about fifteen for passage, and another two thousand for safe arrival? We’ll take that.”

Anakin just sighs. “Yeah, we’ll take that.”

The togruta smiles. “Good. Now, where is your docking bay? We’ll join you after tying up the rest of our affairs here.”

Ahsoka tells her the number and their two passengers wander off, presumably to go sell their speeder and actually raise those funds. Then she leans back in her chair and finishes off her drink, loosely inspecting the knife she keeps in her boot. 

“Fuck, we forgot to ask their names,” Anakin mutters. “And we lost money on that deal, I do hope you know that.”

“Eh, we’ll get their names at some point, and they’d probably give us fake ones in here anyway. Only people looking to get away from something big come looking in here for a ride out,” Ahsoka replies, deciding that she’s sufficiently intimidated the human guy checking her out and sticking her knife back in her boot. 

“One day you’re gonna stab yourself in the leg,” Anakin warns. 

Ahsoka sniffs. “And one day, your precious hyper that we haven’t replaced since we got the ship off Obi-Wan is gonna conk out right when we need it, so I hope you buy a new one with the _seventeen grand_ I just got us.”

“All that hyperdrive needs is a hydrospanner and some engine grease, and she’ll be as good as new. You really have no faith in my abilities as a mechanic,” Anakin observes. 

“You said that the last three times, I’ve heard it all before. Anyway, I’m gonna go clean up the ship a bit before our guests see the horrendous mess you made of it-” 

She lightly dodges Anakin’s fake swat and walks out, ignoring his annoyed yells of “ _It’s your mess!_ ” behind her. 

***

Hearing Anakin’s altercation with Jabba in the landing bay puts Ahsoka on edge, but she puts that aside to properly enjoy the week-long trip to Alderaan that she’s been given. She cleans her bunk in the ship, makes Anakin help her reorganise the cargo bay, and even gets around to rewiring the dejarik table in the galley. The annoying protocol droid (she thinks it’s name is C-3PO, but Rex and Shaak both call him Threepio) hangs around a lot, which pisses off Anakin. Ahsoka lets the droid hang around her a lot more for purely that fact, even though he’s actually scintillating company. He even knows Togruta, so Ahsoka gets the chance to speak in her native tongue. It’s nice, to have that reminder of Shili. It’s too hard to head home now, with the Empire’s siege on the planet, and most of the togruta she meets on her smuggling runs don’t speak the language. Rex and Shaak spend most of their time training in the galley, where Anakin sits around and makes disparaging comments. 

“There’s no such thing as luck,” Shaak warns Anakin as Rex finally manages to deflect a blaster bolt with his saber. “Only the Force.”

Anakin sticks his hands behind his head and turns to watch Ahsoka and Threepio’s game of dejarik, which Threepio is unfortunately winning. 

“I’d let the tog win if I was you, Threepio. She might get mad and dissassemble you,” he remarks, and Ahsoka grins at the droid and flashes her fangs. “And there is such a thing as luck, explain all our lucky escapes! I got us away from those imperial slugs, didn’t I?”

Ahsoka snorts. “You also made us drop our cargo when we were boarded.”

Rex stops deflecting blaster bolts and takes off his helmet, grinning stupidly. “Maybe you’re force sensitive and you didn’t even realise it!”

Ahsoka and Shaak grin, waiting for the inevitable explosion. 

“I don’t even believe in the Force anyway, it’s all a bunch of nonsense. There isn’t gonna be some hokey religion controlling _my_ destiny, no way,” Anakin boasts. Shaak makes to reply, but collapses into a seat. 

“Are you alright? What’s wrong?” Rex looks genuinely terrified, and Shaak is so pale she’s almost Ahsoka’s shade of orange. Fuck, something’s obviously horribly wrong. Shaak suddenly looks old, older than time itself. The atmosphere in the galley turns dark, like someone’s died. Ahsoka hates it.

“I felt a great disturbance in the force… as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Something terrible has happened.”

Rex suddenly looks like he’s about to be sick. “Alderaan…”

“How could it be Alderaan? Nothing can destroy a planet,” Anakin looks genuinely confused. Ahsoka feels the same way. Sure, a bioweapon can destroy the population of a planet, enough bombardment from heavy artillery can ravage a landscape, but the planet will stay. Nothing can destroy something on such a large scale. 

Rex looks grim. “There’s a planet killer on the loose. The Empire built one, they call it the Death Star. It was at Jedha, took out the temple and most of the planet. I wasn’t at Scarif, but it was used there as well. And now it’s been used on my home. There isn’t any other explanation.”

Shaak places a hand on his shoulder. “It may not have been Alderaan. It could have been any other planet, Rex.”

Rex shrugs her hand off. “I felt my parents go. My cousins were on planet. I can’t feel any of them anymore.”

If the Empire really does have a planet killer, then there’s absolutely no hope anymore. The Empire can quash any rebellion, can annihilate any planet that voices any sort of resistance against them. 

The familiar alarms that signal the ships imminent return to subspace start blaring, and everyone jumps. Anakin swears loudly and rushes into the cockpit to make the jump back, and Ahsoka follows him. 

“Looks like we’re coming up on Alderaan!” he yells, sliding into his seat. “Alright Ahsoka, cut in the sublight engines.” 

Ahsoka follows her orders and soon the familiar blue streaks of hyperspace smooth out to the stars in the Alderaani system. The ship begins to make its usual post-hyperdrive noises (yet another reason why they need a new hyperdrive, Ahsoka’s getting really sick of hearing ominous clanks from the engine room all the time), and starts to bump around, like they’re in an asteroid field. 

Anakin swears again. “What the fuck? Aw hell, we’ve come out of hyperspace into into a meteor shower. Some kind of asteroid collision, it’s not on the charts.”

Ahsoka rolls her eyes and flips a few switches on the sublight engines, making sure they don’t blow up when they land. She hears Shaak and Rex make their way into the cockpit behind her, sitting down in the chairs behind the two pilots. 

“What’s going on?” Shaak asks, serene as ever. 

“Our position’s correct,” Anakin mutters, frantically checking star charts on the nav computer. “It’s just- no Alderaan.”

“What do you mean? Where is it?” 

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, lady. It ain’t there. It’s gone. Totally blown away.”

Rex’s hand tightens on the shoulder of Ahsoka’s chair. 

“It’s been destroyed,” he mutters, staring forlornly at the asteroids. That must have been his home, his entire life, the poor guy. “The Empire’s done this. I was too late.”

Too late for what?

Anakin scoffs. “The entire starfleet couldn’t do this, I would know. It’d take a thousand ships with more firepower than ever to do this- oh. You mean the planet killer?”

Rex nods. One of Ahsoka’s proximity alarms start beeping. 

“Huh, that’s odd. That’s a small-range fighter, but there’s no bases around here,” she remarks. 

“It sure is leaving in a hurry,” Anakin muses. “We should jam it’s transmissions so we don’t get reported.”

“No, leave it. We’ve obviously been spotted,” Shaak replies. 

The whole ship jerks and Rex trips into a seat, swearing loudly. Anakin groans and thumps his head onto the console. “Fuuuuck, we’re caught in a tractor beam. It’s coming from that moon though?”

Ahsoka rolls her eyes. “If you could peel your head off the console for three seconds, you’d see that it’s not a moon, it’s a space station.”

Anakin groans again. “Worst day _ever_.”

***

Ahsoka hates imperials. She also hates being stuck in this tiny shitass room, especially because the droids _won’t shut up_ and Rex and Anakin are arguing over what to do next. Soon they’re going to get caught, and they’re going to be in the same situation as Rex’s brother. 

“He’s my brother in there! I can’t let him die!”

“Look, Rex, you gotta have a _plan_. We can’t just waltz in there and grab him, even if we do have armour.”

Rex rolls his eyes and looks around the room. “I have a plan,” he says. The binders on the console across the room move towards him, and Ahsoka sighs deeply. 

“Fine, I’ll do this. But I’m putting them on.”

***

It’s funny how stormtroopers will just ignore the large, visibly pissed-off togruta wandering around the corridors when she has a trooper escort and appears to be restrained. Hell, people even flinch away from her. 

“Surely my angry face doesn’t look this bad?” she asks Anakin in an undertone, smirking slightly. Anakin inclines his head under the helmet, and Ahsoka can tell he’s grinning like a loon. Asshole. 

Rex sighs on her other side, and keeps them walking forward. “ _Please_ try to not get caught before we get there,” he mutters, “I’d like to get off this deathtrap alive.”

“Relax, Rexie. We’ll be fine.”

Rex just shudders and keeps walking. Eventually they make their way to the cell block, where the plan immediately goes to absolute shit. 

“-Everything is under control down here. Situation normal.”

Ahsoka sniggers. Yeah, the situation _is_ normal, especially for them. Most of their jobs end in a blaster fight anyway. 

Anakin keeps trying to get the guy on the comms off their asses. “Uh... we had a slight weapons malfunction. But, uh, everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?”

Rex rolls his eyes and shoots two more stormtroopers; Ahsoka follows suit. The intercom crackles again. 

_“We're sending a squad up.”_

Shit, shiiiiit. More stormies are the last thing they need right now. She signals to Anakin to keep the guy distracted, and he flips her off before replying. 

“Uh, uh, negative. We had a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak… very dangerous.”

Right, the next time they have to do one of these things, Ahsoka’s on distraction. Maybe less things will explode this way. 

_“Who is this? What’s your operating number?”_

Anakin blasts the commlink. “Boring conversation anyway. Rex! Ahsoka! We’re gonna have company!”

“We gathered!” Rex shoots back, before dashing into one of the cells. Ahsoka drags Anakin up beside her and keeps shooting troopers, vaguely listening to the conversation in the cell next to her.”

“Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” The guy inside has the same accent as Rex. 

She hears, “You jackass, I’m taller than you,” while the two brothers hug. “I thought you were dead.”

“It’ll take more than a couple imps and Darth fucking Vader himself to kill me,” boasts the other. 

“You faced off _Vader_? How are you still alive?”

“Luck.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit-”

“I hate to break up the party,” Anakin yells, “but we kinda need to get out of here!”

“How?” is the unanimous reply. 

“You shot out the lift, that’s our only escape route!” Fives yells. 

“Well maybe you’d like it back in your cell, your highness,” Anakin snaps. 

Fives rolls his eyes, grabs Anakin’s blaster, and shoots out a garbage vent. 

“Into the garbage chute, flyboy!” and he gleefully kicks Anakin in the back of the shin. Anakin trips into the rubbish with an ungraceful yelp, and the rest of them follow suit. 

***

After the rubbish incident, Rex’s almost drowning, and the constant arguments between Anakin and Fives, all Ahsoka wants to do is go back to her ship, put on a shitty holodrama, and eat crap food until she passes out. The last thing she wants to do is spend ages fighting through a heap of stormtroopers, all the while listening to what Rex has dubbed ‘the Anakin and Fives show,’ and trying to figure out how the hell to get back to the ship so they can get out of here. 

“Come on, we should get moving. The last thing we need is more stormtroopers around,” Fives says, and Ahsoka’s beginning to like this guy. 

Anakin puffs up like a yavinese frog, and she sighs. “Look, Your Worshipfulness, let’s get one thing straight! I take orders from one person! Me!”

“Well then, it’s a wonder you’re still alive. Come _on_ , we need to move.”

Anakin rolls his eyes and follows, muttering “No reward is worth this,” under his breath. 

Five seconds later, another argument’s breaking out. “You came in that thing? You’re braver than I thought,” Fives observes, looking the ship up and down. Again, Anakin puffs up like a frog and starts to argue. 

“Come on!”

“Alright, survival now, flirting later please!” Ahsoka screeches, thumping a stormtrooper in the face and throwing another one into a group of his friends. 

“We’re not flirting!” is the instantaneous reply. Bullshit, they _are_ flirting. 

***

_The final confrontation between Anakin and Fives could have gone better_ , Ahsoka thinks. It had ended in a raging argument in front of everyone on base, which is hardly befitting one of the last princes of Alderaan. However, it perfectly befits Anakin, who’s started multiple fights in multiple cantinas all across the galaxy. Then there was a last conversation between Rex and Anakin, which had put Anakin in an even fouler mood. Oh well. At least they’re up 17000, they can pay off Jabba and hopefully get a semi-decent hyperdrive out of it. 

She still feels bad, though. Shaak is dead, a Jedi to the last, apparently cut down by the twin’s father. Rex is going up against the biggest weapon in the galaxy, in a tiny snubfighter with only 29 other ships as backup. Fives is waiting in the war room, waiting for news on his friends from the Scarif mission and essentially waiting to die. And where are Ahsoka and Anakin? In hyper, headed back to Tatooine. She can’t do this. 

“Ani.”

Silence. 

“Anakin.”

A quiet grunt.

“ _Anakin_.”

“What?” He looks up and glares at her. 

“We need to go back.”

“Why? Fives made it obvious we’re not wanted.”

Ahsoka sighs. “They’re going to die! They have thirty ships against the biggest fucking weapon in the galaxy!”

“Yeah, but what difference are we gonna make?”

“We can make some difference, and it’s not right to let them die like that. Come on, Fives and Rex are in danger!”

She can see the cogs turning in her friend’s mind, can see him weighing up the options. A fast ship could get in there, could help take some TIEs out. A faster ship could aid the trench run, could make the shot that means life or death. On the other hand, if they die in the firefight they’ll never get to spend their 17000, which Ahsoka thinks is a crying shame. She’s been looking forward to a hyperdrive that doesn’t make suspect noises for _years_.

Needs must, though. 

“Alright, we’ll turn around.”

Ahsoka pulls them out of hyper and plugs the coordinates for Yavin IV in, taking care to ensure that they come out a few kliks out of the system. They don’t know where the Death Star is, after all, and they don’t want to come out of hyperspace right on top of it. 

Shit, the battle looks _awful_. There’s only one Y-wing left, and two X-Wings. As she watches, one of the X-wings peels off and heads back towards the base, despite the three TIEs following the other ships. Anakin flicks a button and gets himself onto the Rebel’s chatter, and voices fill the cabin. 

_“-had to go back, Red Five. Too dangerous-”_

The voice sounds similar to Rex’s, but it’s not. It’s not Fives, either. 

_“-alright, Two. Stay safe.”_

_That’s_ where Rex is. He’s one of the only ones left, and as the Falcon inches closer, they notice that the lead TIE (an interceptor, Ahsoka thinks), is moving too fast for Rex to get in his sights. 

_“He’s turned off his targeting device! Red Five, is everything alright?”_

Fuuuuck, what’s the kid _doing_? He must be insane!

Before she can think, Ahsoka’s rushing down to the gun turret, boots squeaking on the grubby floor. From the transparisteel bubble down there, the battle looks even worse. Rex misses a shot as she watches in terror, and has to avoid the interceptor to take another run. Anakin yells through the comms that the Rebels have thirty seconds, and to make the shot quick. 

Rex lines up his shot in the trench, and Anakin keeps the ship as still as he can as Ahsoka takes aim. Her first shot goes wide, hits the Death Star itself and destroys something on the surface. Rex is getting closer and closer to the exhaust port, and the interceptor aims at him again. Her second shot clips the interceptors wing, but it’s enough to send him careening wildy off course, disappearing into the distance. Distantly, through the adrenaline rush, she hears Anakin yelling through the comms at Rex. 

_“You’re all clear, kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!”_

_“Roger, roger!”_ Rex replies, and makes the shot. 

There’s a beat of silence as he flies free, and then the sky explodes in a shower of yellow and orange. Anakin starts screeching in joy up in the cockpit, and Ahsoka rushes out of her seat to go meet him in the hall. 

“We did it!” he yells, scooping her up in a massive hug that threatens to crush her ribs. 

“Are we going back to the base now?” she asks, extricating herself from the hug with a grin. “I’m sure Fives would like to see you now,” she weedles, and revels in the blush that covers his face. 

“Yeah, we’ll go back,” he replies, and runs back to the cockpit to guide them into the hangar. 

***

When they land, they rush down the ramp and are immediately set upon by Fives. 

“You came back! I knew you would!” he screeches, wrapping his arm around Anakin’s neck. Rex jumps out of his X-wing and joins the hug, and the four of them make their way into the main hangar, where a party’s already been started and the memorial is already being read. 

There’s too many names to read off, so Rex and Fives stand up the front and recite the names of the main families of Alderaan, and pledge to find a home for the Alderaani people that were off planet at the time of the disaster. Fives leaves the front of the hangar and a woman named Padme walks up, leaning on a crutch with a bandage around her arm. She recites the names of those on her team that died extracting the plans from Scarif, and Rex adds Shaak Ti’s name. Despite not being part of the Rebellion, she did shut down the tractor beam on the Death Star, allowing the rest of them to escape. Cody, Red Two, stands up and recites the names of all of those lost in the battle of Yavin. 

Then the party starts. People hand out glasses of engine moonshine, which tastes like paint stripper and smells about the same. Ahsoka has a few too many glasses and ends up flirting with both a very attractive Mirialan medic, who goes by Offee, and a human medic named Kaeden. Rex and Cody wander by occasionally, before presumably sneaking off somewhere to find a dark corner. Fives and Anakin are stuck to each other all night, and both of them always have their glasses full and blushes on their faces. 

Ahsoka smirks. Maybe there’ll be a reason to stay with the Rebellion now. She likes the people, likes what they do, and the pretty women are just a bonus. Even if Anakin doesn’t stay, she’s found where she belongs, and she highly doubts she’s going to let that go. 

Eventually Anakin comes and finds her, holding two full glasses. Ahsoka pinches one, and he mock glares at her until she flips him off. 

“So. The prince?” she asks. “Maybe you’ll even stay with the Rebels now.”

Anakin turns bright red and downs his entire drink in one go. When he resurfaces, coughing up a lung, Ahsoka starts laughing and laughing and laughing. 

“I might stay,” he wheezes out between coughs, whacking himself in the chest. Ahsoka takes pity on him and whacks him in the back. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she says easily. “I might stay too.”

Anakin eyes her over the top of his empty glass. “Ooh, who’s caught _your_ eye?” 

Ahsoka smirks. “That’s for me to know and you to never find out!” she laughs, walking off. 

Behind her, Anakin is still yelling. “I’ll ask Rex!”

“Rex is off with Cody, I wouldn’t disturb them!she calls back, feeling smug. 

“I’ll find out, Tano!”

“You can try!”

Anakin’s answering shriek of frustration is hilarious, and Ahsoka finds herself smiling like a moron as she makes her way through the party, back to Kaeden and Offee. Yeah, she’ll stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are very welcomed!  
> Also, come and find me at my [Tumblr!](http://www.pidgeonkatie.tumblr.com) I love talking to people there! (albeit it is mainly reblogged shitposts and 0 original content, but it's mostly star wars so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯)


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